Netanyahu plans to remove Palestinians and build settlements in north Gaza Strip

Israel has started to implement the second stage of its war in Gaza, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignoring and abandoning the Israeli hostages, according to Haaretz editor-in-chief Aluf Benn. The aim, wrote Benn on Tuesday, is to make them a “burden” on the Palestinians and “a justification for continued warfare, siege and occupation.”

Benn said that during this stage Israel will seek to complete its control over the northern Gaza Strip from the previous border to the Netzarim corridor. “We can predict that this area will then gradually be made available for Jewish settlement and annexation to Israel, according to the degree of international outcry that such steps might incur.”

The editor added that, “If that happens, Palestinian residents who remain in northern Gaza will be expelled, as suggested by Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, under threat of starvation and under cover of ‘protecting their lives’ while the Israeli military hunts down Hamas militants [sic] in that sector.”

It is said that through this plan, Netanyahu dreams of expanding Israeli-controlled territory, which would be his “total victory” and his “Zionist response” to the 7 October cross-border incursion.

“In this right-wing Israeli government’s vision, which it no longer really bothers to conceal, the Palestinians in northern Gaza will face the fate of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh: They were expelled from the region a year ago, overnight, in a rapid move by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Israel’s close ally,” Benn pointed out. “The world saw this and moved on: 100,000 refugees are still stranded in Armenia, which is in no rush to integrate them. Similarly, the expelled residents of northern Gaza will huddle together with refugees from the first phase of the war in the ‘humanitarian enclave’ in the south.”

Last week, Netanyahu instructed the Israeli army to prepare to control humanitarian aid to replace international organisations. According to Benn, the motive is obvious. “Whoever distributes the food and medicine has their hand on the power switch. Along the way, Israel will have the opportunity to once and for all remove from Gaza the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees [UNRWA}, seen by the right as an anti-Zionist project.”

Meanwhile, Hamas will continue ruling the area between the Netzarim corridor and the Philadelphi Corridor in the south, “surrounded and besieged by Israel, which will now take control of aid distribution. This is the meaning of Netanyahu’s statement that the border between Gaza and Egypt [the Philadelphi Corridor] will remain under Israeli control.”

The Haaretz editor-in-chief added that, “In such a situation, Netanyahu and his partners hope that after another winter in tents and without basic facilities, the two million Palestinians crowded in Rafah, Khan Yunis and Al-Mawasi will realise that they cannot go back to their ruined homes. Accordingly, despair is supposed to incite them against Yahya Sinwar’s oppressive rule, and to encourage many of them to leave Gaza altogether.”

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